Monday Miscellany

Last Friday (Nov. 5) a small group of environmentally-minded faculty met to discuss "green" classroom initiatives. We spent time talking about "paperless" courses, and wondered what truly is more environmentally-friendly: using less paper or using the technology less (or do our students have their computers on permanently anyway)? We also spent some amount of time talking about the various "paperless" platforms such as blackboard, traditional e-mail, and other tools such as "moodle" and "desire to learn" which are not largely used at SMU. We thought that perhaps more dialogue between the Continuing Education office and those who teach traditional on-campus courses could unfold, so that we might learn how to be more efficient in our desire to deliver "greener" courses. It was expressed that at present, we do not have the technology that is genuinely "green" to prompt some to go a more paperless route. Perhaps it is coming, as this article, sent to me by Tim Stretton in the History Department, discusses advances in low-power computing. We also briefly discussed e-texts, and ways to avoid unnecessary textbook selections and ways to be more innovative with publishers. I have a feeling that there will be much more to talk about on the latter in the coming months and years ahead.

It was tempting to sway the conversation into the pedagogical realm, although this meeting was intended to look at our ways of delivering green courses as opposed to the content within them. One theme that emerged that I personally want to spend some time researching and thinking about is; given the gloomy forecasts for our environment, how do we avoid turning our students off or making them cynical? Maybe some of you have thoughts on this? Both Anne Marie Dalton and I have recently returned from academic conferences related to environmental sustainability. I will be sharing some of the highlights from the conference I attended in the weeks ahead. And perhaps Anne Marie could give a guest blog on hers. So stay tuned for that as well!

In the meantime, here is another interesting resource from Anne Marie for those who are interested:

Mother Pelican is a journal on sustainable human development. It is named in honor of the Human Being that "Mother Pelican" represents. The November 2010 issue has been posted:

What is the Root Cause of Unsustainable Development?